What is Monero (XMR)? A beginner’s guide in 360 words.

Monero, denoted “XMR” and branded with it’s recognizable orange & black hues, is the single largest privacy & anonymity-focused cryptocurrency.

So what exactly is Monero & how is it different than Bitcoin?

Monero is an implementation of an old blockchain protocol named ‘CryptoNote.’ This is in stark contrast to some of the other “Top 10 Market Cap” cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin & Dash – which are both forks of the one & only Bitcoin software.

The Monero team, while appreciating the evolutionary path carved out by industry-mystery Satoshi Nakamoto, believed that Bitcoin was missing a key feature that made it fall just short of a revolutionary change: anonymity.

In the Bitcoin world, the majority of users settle on an app or two & exclusively use those apps as their permanent wallets; these users then continue to use those wallets for any purchase or p2p transaction they need to make.

Well, the thing about the Bitcoin blockchain is that for every Bitcoin transaction, any human browsing the ledger can query & identify both the receiver and sender wallet addresses. By using Bitcoin for everyday transactions, we’re essentially volunteering our financial history to the world for audit.

The Monero team set out to find a more effective way of obfuscating senders of transactions without compromising the security, transparency, and decentralization expected from blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. They found their answer in confirming transactions with a multi-signature algorithm aptly named a ring signature. With a ring-signature, multiple parties confirm that a single transaction has been sent by one & only one of the multiple signatures. Once this transaction is confirmed & added to the next Monero block, it becomes impossible for anyone looking at those transactions to know exactly which one of the many signatures the transaction came from.

In addition to defaulting to ring-signatures, Monero tackles linkability by creating a blockchain of transactions that displays one-time use public keys instead of a blockchain of transactions displaying reused wallet addresses.

It’s important to note two more distinct facts about Monero. First, it’s the only top ten market cap project that is not backed financially, logistically, or legally by either a private or public institution (as of December 2017). Second, the Monero community is also peculiar about new users looking to speculate or “get rich quick” in the crypto space – they flat out tell users to not buy Monero without doing their own research.

How can you buy XMR?

You first need to buy Bitcoin or Ethereum on Coinbase and then transfer it over to your account at Binance to exchange it for XMR. If you get stuck or need help, send us a message through our Facebook page or email and someone on staff will walk you through the process.